Jussiaea peruviana L.

• Title

  Jussiaea peruviana L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Jussiaea peruviana L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Jussiaea peruviana Broad-leaved Primrose Willow Family Onagraceae Evening-primrose Jussiaea peruviana Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 368. 1753. Oenothera hirta Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, edition 10, 998. 1759. Jussiaea hirta Vahl Eclogae Americanae 2: 31. 1798. An upright, hairy herb, frequent in wet, or moist, open places in Porto Rico, with thin leaves, and large, solitary, conspicuous, yellow flowers, best observed in the early morning, because the petals usually fall away soon after unfolding. The plant is distributed through the Greater Antilles, in Florida, in Trinidad, and widely in continental tropical America; it is notably unrecorded in the Virgin Islands, nor in the Lesser Antilles north of Trinidad. An account of the genus may be found with our description of Jussiaea angustifolia, and another species, Jussiaea leptocarpa is also illustrated in this work. Jussiaea peruviana (first named from Peru) is usually branched, 2.5 meters high, or lower, the stout stem and branches hirsute. The oblong, or oblong-lanceolate, short-stalked leaves are from 5 to 10 centimeters long, strongly veined, hairy on both sides, long-pointed, with a narrowed base. The flowers have a stout, hairy stalk from 1 to 4 centimeters long; the 4, ovate calyx-lobes are from 8 to 12 millimeters long, pointed, and hairy; the obovate petals are longer than the calyx-lobes. The capsule is 4-sided, inversely pyramidal, hairy, from 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters long, with several rows of seeds in each cavity.